The story behind "Iceberg near Grey Glacier, Patagonia"

It’s #sciencesunday ! Glaciar Grey is a huge glacier in the Torres del Paine National Park. As the glacier is moving and ends in a body of water, parts break off and form icebergs like the one above. It is impressive to carefully boat around these, as normally around 89% is hidden beneath the surface…

What is an iceberg? From WikiPedia:

“An iceberg is a large piece of freshwater ice that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open water. It may subsequently become frozen into pack ice (one form of sea ice). As it drifts into shallower waters, it may come into contact with the seabed, a process referred to as seabed gouging by ice.

Because the density of pure ice is about 920 kg/m³, and that of sea water about 1025 kg/m³, typically only one-ninth of the volume of an iceberg is above water. The shape of the underwater portion can be difficult to judge by looking at the portion above the surface. This has led to the expression “tip of the iceberg”, for a problem or difficulty that is only a small manifestation of a larger problem.

Icebergs generally range from 1 to 75 metres (3.3 to 246 ft) above sea level and weigh 100,000 to 200,000 metric tons (110,000 to 220,000 short tons). The largest known iceberg in the North Atlantic was 168 metres (551 ft) above sea level, reported by the USCG icebreaker East Wind in 1958, making it the height of a 55-story building.”

It's #sciencesunday ! Glaciar Grey is a huge glacier in the Torres del Paine National Park. As the glacier is moving and ends in a body of water, parts break off and form icebergs like the one above. It is impressive to carefully boat around these, as normally around 89% is hidden beneath t